


Moonlight on Water

by ebres



Series: Symbiosis [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Bond, Gen, Rey's downloading more lessons from the Force Cloud, because where else is Rey from Jakku going to learn how to swim?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 18:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebres/pseuds/ebres
Summary: Water. So much water. There was more water here than she could have even thought to imagine on Jakku. So much colder than she knew water could be.And she was drowning in it.





	Moonlight on Water

Water. So much water. There was more water here than she could have even thought to imagine on Jakku. So much colder than she knew water could be.

                And she was drowning in it.

                It was all around her, pressing on her lungs, her chest, her ears. She kicked out but it only dragged her down farther, deeper. She could barely see, it was so dark, the only light an eerie glow that came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Her hands grazed a jagged rock as the current took her but it was gone too quickly to grasp for purchase. The last of her air escaped her lungs and an icy panic gripped her.

                I’m dying.

                No. This couldn’t be how it ended. People were counting on her to complete her mission. The General, Poe, Finn, they still needed her. She couldn’t die here, in the oceans of Ahch-To, on this tiny planet half a galaxy away from everything she’d ever known.

                What had Master Skywalker said? The Force is an energy, a balance between all things.

                She reached out, blindly, into that energy. The energy she could feel surrounding her, within her, opening up to it with every bit of strength she could summon. And-

                _“You can’t just throw him in the lake, Han!” Master Skywalker is holding her arms and there’s someone laughing and she’s soaking wet but warm. As he pulls her out of the water she looks up at him, he’s not the Luke Skywalker she knows. He’s young, decades younger, clean shaven, with wavy blond hair and bright eyes. He laughs as he pulls her into his lap. “Your father is trying to kill you, you know that right?”_

_Han is standing in the water, submerged to mid chest, trying to frown but smiling too much. Her heart clenches and aches to see him, a young man and whole, alive and happy. “The best way to learn is by doing,” he says in a tone that says they’ve had this argument before. “Get in the middle of it and figure it out for yourself.”_

_“No,” Luke says in her ear. “The best way to learn is to be taught.” He slides them both farther into the water, holding her tight with one arm around her waist so she doesn’t fall in again. “Here, I’ll show you. Cup your hands, like this.” He shows her, once above the water and then below, making his hand like a paddle to push the water out of the way, and she mimics him, pride swelling in her chest when he smiles against her hair. “And when you kick your feet slow down, if you move too quickly you’ll sink.”_

                It was like… Like being on Starkiller Base again. Fighting in the snow, holding a lightsaber and knowing without knowing exactly what move to make next, where to strike, how to hold herself. Like she had done it all before. She was-

                _Sixteen and sneaking out of the temple, twin moons full and gleaming in the sky. The lakes here are nothing compared to home but she misses them too badly to care. The water is cool, always on the side of too cold to be comfortable, but she barely feels it as she takes her first few steps away from shore._

_It’s quiet, down deep. Silence pressing down on her, forcing everything else out. She comes here when she needs the quiet, needs to think without anything or anyone intruding upon her thoughts. In a few long, unhurried strokes she finds herself in the middle of the lake, where the water is deepest, and leans back to float. Water laps around and over her ears, the only sound in the night, as she stares up at the sky, picking out constellations in far away suns._

                Her hand slammed onto the jagged peak of rock at the water’s edge and she hauled herself up and onto dry land. Her chest heaved the moment she was on solid ground, coughing up water between her splayed hands and gasping for breath.

                She glanced back at the water she’d come from. The sea still roiled, thrumming with energy and splashing up onto the dark rock she clung to, angry white-tipped waves and ice black depths. Darkness and danger and death.

                But for a moment, just one instant, Rey saw moonlight on still water and laughter in the sun.


End file.
